Cruise ship captain in custody as horror stories emerge

"Like the Titanic". That is what many are saying as the Costa Concordia’s captain is held on suspicion of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship with passengers still on board. Officials believe he brought his vessel too close to the island of Giglio. Speaking before his arrest, Francesco Schettino disagreed, saying the rock was not shown on his maritime chart.

A third survivor has been plucked to safety from a capsized cruise liner off the west coast of Italy. But shortly afterwards two more bodies were found in a submerged part of the ship. The Costa Concordia’s chief purser, suffering from a broken leg, was flown to hospital. Earlier, a honeymooning South Korean couple were found uninjured and taken ashore from the ship that hit rocks, late on Friday.

Italian authorities now put the number of people missing at around 15. But on Sunday afternoon, Paris said more than 20 French citizens were still unaccounted for. Captain Cosimo Nicastro of the Italian Coastguard said: “We have rescue divers. They are going underwater, to check underwater parts of the ship…if there is a possibility of people still on board. So we keep going. We keep looking. We don’t stop and we keep searching.”

More than 4,000 people were on board the luxury liner. Two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member had already been confirmed dead.